| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: "Deadly? In what way can they possibly be deadly?"
"You will learn. I was watching you in the boat, Maskull. You had
some bad feelings, eh?"
"I don't conceal it. There were times when I felt as if I were
struggling with a nightmare. What caused it?"
"The female atmosphere of Lichstorm. Sexual passion."
"I had no passion."
"That was passion - the first stage. Nature tickles your people into
marriage, but it tortures us. Wait till you get outside. You'll
have a return of those sensations - only ten times worse. The drink
you've had will see to that.... How do you suppose it will all end?"
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: pack to stay on the pony's back I saw where Mr. Cless had played a joke on
me. All memory of the diamond-hitch had faded into utter confusion. First
the pack fell over the off-side; next, on top of me; then the saddle
slipped awry, and when I did get the pack to remain stationary upon the
patient pony, how on earth to tie it there became more and more of a
mystery. Finally, in sheer desperation, I ran round the pony, pulled,
tugged, and knotted the lasso; more by luck than through sense I had
accomplished something in the nature of the diamond-hitch.
I headed Hal up the gentle forest slope, and began the day's journey
wherever chance might lead me. As confidence came, my enjoyment increased.
I began to believe I could take care of myself. I reasoned out that, as the
The Young Forester |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: laugh, whether by making faces or verses? Are you aware that you
have a pleasant sense of patronizing him, when you condescend so
far as to let him turn somersets, literal or literary, for your
royal delight? Now if a man can only be allowed to stand on a
dais, or raised platform, and look down on his neighbor who is
exerting his talent for him, oh, it is all right! - first-rate
performance! - and all the rest of the fine phrases. But if all at
once the performer asks the gentleman to come upon the floor, and,
stepping upon the platform, begins to talk down at him, - ah, that
wasn't in the programme!
I have never forgotten what happened when Sydney Smith - who, as
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
